[fic] We're Made Out Of Blood And Rust - 1/1
Title: We're Made Out Of Blood And Rust
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Duke/Nathan
Rating: M
Word Count: 3,370
Warnings: Angst, blowjobs, liquor
Summary: “Look, you’ve been really, uh. Supportive. I guess. In your own way. But can you maybe stow the condescension for the night? Disdain doesn’t mix well with anything I serve here.”
Disclaimer: Haven is not mine. Obvs.
Author Notes: I write for other fandoms! Occasionally. Not like I'll ever post this at any of the Haven comms, so no one will ever read it, but hey. It is the thought that counts.
---
He’s got more than one black spot in his memory, most preceded by the sick-sweet scent of alcohol; tequila or whiskey or vodka.
Prost!
There’s only one gaping hole Duke has never been able to explain - watered down sunlight, dried kelp, and his first dead body, but not the last, not by a long shot - and frankly, he grows up minimally interested in the how and the why. The past is an itemized checklist of all the things he’s done wrong, an easy pit to trip into, and regret is for suckers. Duke Crocker is all about the future, about sparkly potential, and it’s all looking pretty bright until Audrey waltzes into town.
She’s got a diamond-edged smile and the uncanny ability to stir up all the sediment Duke is certain that people let settle for a reason.
Dirt starts flying left and right, Haven’s tiny dynasties falling to ash, and Duke wants to stay out of it, honest, he does, but even he’s not immune, old flames and bungled mistakes slithering out of the woodwork. It’s only right that he tries to help fix one or two or eight things, because he had a part in some of the messes Audrey’s trying to clean, and thieves’ honor is still honor, right? It totally counts. At the end of the day, Duke can pat himself on the back for a job well done and revel in the way Audrey grins up at him, like he really is a good man on the inside, like maybe he’ll always do the right thing.
Only Duke knows better. He’s not like Audrey or Nathan, not cut from fairytale cloth where justice prevails and chivalry triumphs and true love’s kiss is the only kind that matters. Haven, Maine, might be storybook pretty, but in novels people like Duke always end up being the bad guy, and he doubts real life will be much different. Finding out he’s like, Buffy the Troubled Slayer is less of a nasty shock and more of the bomb Duke always knew would drop.
Doesn’t mean he’s a fan of being told what to do, even if fate’s the one pulling the strings. He’s been able to ignore plenty of legacies from dear old dad, including but not limited to debt, liver disease, and dickishness.
Well. Maybe not that last one, but the rest, yeah, he’s dodged and feinted like a pro, so why should this be any different? That’s what he’s hinging on for the longest while, through Nathan’s diva fits and the mistrust in half of the town folks’ eyes; his legendary ability to outrun the world.
Turns out, the world’s been training for this marathon, or maybe blood really is the one thing a person can’t leave behind. Whatever the reason, Duke ends up with hands stained red and a really deep, passionate desire to forget everything ever.
Great.
Fabulous.
Awesome.
So he’s getting reacquainted with some old friends, specifically Jose and Johnny, with a side of Ketel One to make it a real party, and that, of course, is when Nathan shows up. He rarely visits the Gull without Audrey by his side, so this isn’t a social call. Probably Nathan Wuornos has finally decided to bite the bullet by forcing Duke to bite a bullet.
Duke doesn’t even have the energy to be upset about it. He takes a shot of Cuervo and raises his empty glass in a toast, because if he’s going to die, he is doing it drunk, goddamnit. “How’s it going, buddy?”
In a startling show of restraint, Nathan does not pull a gun on him, which oh, goody, means death won’t come knocking today. Nor is Wuornos wearing his Serious Detective Face. No doubt that means Nathan is here in an unofficial capacity to lord his moral superiority all over Duke’s nice clean bar.
Joy. The floors will get all sticky with condescension and virtue.
Duke pours another reinforcing shot of tequila, deciding Nathan’s sassy bitch grimace is sure to be more entertaining through a haze of 90 proof. Meanwhile, Nathan drums his fingers against his own thigh, working out some kind of internal debate before he slides onto the nearest barstool.
“Are you alright?”
Duke snorts. “In what sense? Physically, spiritually, financially-“
“Emotionally.”
“Ah, see, no, emotions aren’t something you’ve accused me of having before, so that would not have been my first guess. Are you sure you didn’t mean-“
“I meant what I said.”
“Will you let me finish a sentence? Manners, Nathan. Manners are important.” He waves a hand airily around, because the alternative is trying to find some warmth in Nathan’s skin, and that won’t be happening ever again. They can’t touch like they used to, when they were younger and freer and energy buzzed electric in their bones. The past is still a thunderous thing, resonant in the careful spaces they keep between their bodies, all these memories that punish and sing siren songs in turn.
And even if their history wasn’t half-written in blood, Nathan is numb to hands and knives; to Duke, who is somewhere in between. He is calluses and skin, the sharp bite of nails and his silver tongue.
Or at least that’s what Nathan used to say when they were different people entirely.
The one time they’ve tried to cross the divide and sort out all the rottenness between them, Nathan couldn’t feel it. Not the rough parts, or the gentleness either. He puts on a good show, acts like he still knows what to do with his lips, but Duke has always been able to tell the difference between an oasis and a mirage.
Besides, they were dimwitted to think sex would be a magic fix-all. If anything, it just made them angrier and more resentful.
Worse still, now Duke has no idea what he is, indefinable in terms of his relationship with Nathan, and unwilling to define himself by anything else. Labels are not kind things, and Troubled sounds a lot like Murderer in his head.
Nathan is watching Duke with something perilously close to pity, and Duke’s first instinct is to lash out, to bat that expression away. Once upon a time he marked his days with the myriad ways they fucked and fought, but he’s got a different calendar now. He’ll keep the peace, if he can.
“I am very, very far from alright,” he announces, refilling his glass and willing his fingers not to tremble. He is hollow on the inside, the parts of himself that survived childhood rusting out like an old hull, but that’ll change. Crocker men are iron and steel, metal spines beneath their more fallible, less reliable organs.
It’s the one thing his dad said that stuck with him through every self-destructive binge he’s ever orchestrated, advice that has yet to let Duke down. It’s how he survived Nathan leaving, anyway, and that took him to some pretty dark places.
Killing a man is simultaneously a weightier thing and not as difficult, because Duke was perfectly aware he had violence in him, but he never thought he’d be able to let Nathan go.
He’s still not certain that he has, haunted as he is by the gunmetal rings of Nathan’s irises, the curve of his mouth and, in Duke’s grandest moments of self-deprecation, the way no one has ever loved him as fiercely or as true.
Nathan says, “It gets better.”
Nathan lies.
“See, you say that, but you don’t mean it,” Duke replies. No horrific act ever heals. Scars are meant to remind people where they went wrong.
Nathan’s shoulders slump, but he probably doesn’t even know how to spell defeat. “Fine. It doesn’t get better. It gets…easier.”
“To kill or to not to care?”
“Both.”
“That’s terrifying, you asshole. Why are you trying to freak me out?”
“Fear is good for you. It’ll help keep you honest.”
Duke laughs at that. “Nothing keeps me honest.”
He can’t have always sounded so bitter. Duke remembers lying tangled in Nathan’s sheets, painted pale yellow with sunlight, their ankles twined, their laughter crashing down around them both like gold-dappled waves. These days Nathan is statue-somber, but he used to rip joy from Duke’s throat without even trying.
Duke ruined him, or this town ruined him, or maybe they both had a hand in it. Haven and Crockers destroy all the things they touch.
“Duke…”
“Look, you’ve been really, uh. Supportive. I guess. In your own way. But can you maybe stow the condescension for the night? Disdain doesn’t mix well with anything I serve here.”
Nathan raises his hands slowly, his fingers as long and perfect as the last time Duke saw them wrapped around his cock. “I’m trying to help.”
“You’re failing.” Nathan’s face doesn’t fall, exactly, but frustration, annoyance, and disappointment flicker across his expression quick as heat lightning, and if there’s something like sadness mixed in then Duke chooses not to see it. He continues, “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it. Clearly you are making an effort not to kill me, which is spectacular because I’m fond of living, but I really, really, really want to be alone right now.”
Being alone used to be significant because it meant being with Nathan, but that hasn’t been the case for years. Nathan makes an aggravated sound. “I don’t want to kill you. I just don’t want you kill anyone else, either.”
“I don’t need you to police my life choices. We’ve had this talk.”
“Except obviously you do. You’re Troubled, Duke.” The word doesn’t sound any better from Nathan’s lips than it did in Duke’s head. All the scary connotations are there, echoing in the air, but for clarity’s sake Nathan adds, “You’re going to hurt people.”
Duke rolls his eyes, downs his drink, and bites out, “I never needed spooky magic powers to make anyone hurt.”
What happened between them went down a long time ago, but Nathan still jerks away from the words, as if they cut deep when nothing else could. Duke waits for him to accentuate the gesture by stomping off in a full-on sulk, storm clouds and frown lines, but Nathan stands his ground.
Duke doesn’t know how to interpret it. Either he can’t wound Nathan the way he used to or Nathan cares more than Duke thought. Which to hope for?
Both options make him ache.
Nathan eyes the empty rocks glass in Duke’s hand, drops of Cuervo still glittering honey colored at the bottom. “You can’t drink your problems away.”
Cheerily, Duke retorts, “I can try.”
He watches the clench of Nathan’s fists and thinks about kissing the web of skin between his index finger and thumb. If Nathan closed his eyes, he wouldn’t even know it was happening. This is masochism, at its finest. Duke’s gut squeezes in time with Nathan’s fingers and palms, heart stuttering with loss of something he hasn’t had in forever anyway. The ghost of love is so pesky.
He’s pissed off and less than sober, and pressing the issue seems like a Good Idea. “Hey, so if I do go homicidal on this whole town, am I going to get up close and intimate with your gun? You never let me touch it anymore.”
Two steps is all it takes for Nathan to invade his personal space, to get up in Duke’s face with his eyes sparking fire. He never gets this angry for anyone else, so completely in control of everything he does, every carefully faked reaction to touch and to shock; Chief Wuornos and his icy composure. Duke makes it all come crashing down, every time, eternally the faulty brick in Nathan’s carefully constructed walls.
“Do you have to turn everything into a joke?”
“Only funny things.”
Nathan’s heat ignites the places where their bodies touch, but he doesn’t even appear to notice that their knees are knocking together.
Duke does. He wants Nathan’s hands and he wants Nathan’s mouth, and most of all he wants Nathan to look at him with his too-blue eyes like maybe he is not a monster.
But that would be a small miracle, so why not perpetuate the myth?
He arches against Nathan, making it obvious, his eyes tracking slow down the lines of Wuornos’s throat, his chest, his really tight pants. Missing out on pain apparently means his balls don’t ever need to breathe, but that’s cool, Duke is all about appreciating the view.
Nathan follows Duke’s gaze, but keeps his terrier-hold of the conversation. He insists, “You dying is not funny,” ending on a growl.
So there, subject closed. That’s how Nathan ends every argument, with the same I’m right-you’re wrong mentality he’s had since they were ankle biters. Now Duke knows better than to argue, but when they were kids? Oh, arguing is all he used to do.
Duke spent most of his time running around, causing chaos - making as much noise as possible to make up for the complete lack of it inside his utter wasteland of a home - and Nathan was always there, not always a friend, but not always an enemy either.
He was an easy mark for Duke’s anger a lot of the time.
He was also the only person who held the world together when everyone else had walked away.
The first time they kissed Duke was drunk off his ass, and the next morning he barely recalled anything other than the way Nathan watched him with a combination of exasperation, fondness, and reverence, too much emotion luminescent on his face. What happened from there is history, or maybe it’s not.
Does it count as an epic love story if no one but the two of them knew it was occurring?
Instead of gritting out a snappy retort, Duke says, “Nice to see you still care.”
“I never stopped caring,” Nathan says, mouth close enough to kiss, and he looks happier when he’s investigating mysterious deaths than he does saying that out loud. Flattery never was Nathan’s strong suit.
The confession takes something out of him; he drops to his knees.
Or hey, actually, okay, those are Nathan’s fingers on Duke’s belt buckle, clumsily opening the catch, and it’s not surrender in his eyes. Okay then.
“Yeah, no, Nate, this is unexpectedly…hot, but what the fuck are you doing?” Duke asks, doing his damndest not to stammer, but hell if the liquor doesn’t make his vowels slow and round off his consonants.
Nathan says, “Figure it out,” and that’s unnecessarily snarky, honestly, but its par for the course. Duke makes an indignant noise when Nathan presses his mouth against the shape of his cock through denim, because wait, he’s not stupid and this has Bad Idea written all over it.
Naturally that bit of wisdom flies right out of his head when Nathan arches his eyebrows and yanks down Duke’s zipper. Duke is slower on the uptake than he was ten years ago, witch-blood sluggish and dull with pre-gaming his pity-party, but he still can’t help but react to that, to the reality of Nathan about to blow him and his vivid recollection of this happening a billion times before.
Nathan works Duke free of his pants and underwear, hands hot for all he can’t feel, and shit, Duke probably should have worn a pair of clean boxers.
That thought’s chased away too as Nathan presses his lips against the wiry hair at the base of Duke’s cock. He lingers, breathing Duke in before mouthing his way up the shaft of his dick, testing the give of skin and the heat he can probably taste. Probably. Duke hears a noise that must be him and realizes he might be hyperventilating.
That does not keep him from watching as Nathan wraps his lips around the head of Duke’s dick, sparing a whole three seconds to tease before swallowing him whole. His hands press bruises into Duke’s thighs, alternately squeezing and tracing strange geometric shapes on the back of Duke’s knees while Duke stares down at him in utter shock.
He’s got no idea what he sees on Nathan’s face now; shadows of joy, shadows of anger, who even cares? Duke wends his fingers through thick hair and resolves not to get too poetic about anything as he bobs into the heat of Nathan’s mouth.
Been there, done that, left a terribly expressive, terribly humiliating drunk voicemail in the hopes that Nathan would take him back.
Nathan did not, his twinkly eyes be damned, and surprise blowjobs don’t mean this time will be any different. Down that road lies heartbreak and confessing everything to Audrey over chick flicks and a tub of chocolate ice cream.
The idea of it is enough to put the fear of god in any emotionally stunted asshole, Duke included.
Of course, it would be a lot easier to remember the ramifications of not-hating Nathan if Nathan wasn’t sucking his dick.
It’d be different if Nathan was doing it mechanically, muscle-memory guiding the way. Instead he’s getting pretty enthusiastic, shepherded in part by recollection, the grunts and groans tumbling from Duke’s lips lighting the rest of the way. He curls his tongue around the underside of Duke’s cock, tight suction and impossibly wet heat.
This is so not fair.
“Nathan,” Duke says, digging his fingers into Nathan’s scalp, voice cracking uncomfortably.
Nathan makes a noise that could be a laugh, if this were in any way funny, and he takes Duke to the back of his throat, lets off only to flick wet against the slit. Everything around Duke’s dick pulses, hothothot and live-wire thrilling. The hardwood floor creaks beneath them, the wind battering up a storm outside.
Duke is way too fucking drunk for this, horny enough that he wants to get it over with, nostalgic enough that he’s determined not to end everything too quick. Like he’s got a choice. Nathan is all mouth and tongue and the barest purposeful scrape of teeth.
The hint of pain spins Duke out, reckless abandon curling hot and low. He takes Nathan’s face between his hands, caressing his hollowed cheeks in a way Nathan can see peripherally. Duke holds him still and snaps his hips forward. He may not be able to hurt Nathan, but he can give him a show, and having no gag reflex doesn’t mean Wuornos’s voice will be any less scratchy once Duke is done with him.
Nathan’s mouth is stretched red and obscene, but he stares unblinkingly back at Duke as he moves, his tongue licking slow stretches across Duke’s flesh each time Duke dips deliberately between his lips.
It ends like it’s supposed to, Duke’s balls drawing up tight and then it’s over, over, over. Swallowing cum is as easy as knocking back a tequila shot, and like most of Haven, Nathan has been doing those since before he knew how to drive. It slides hot and salty all the way down his throat, and afterwards for hours, if there is any justice in this world, all he will be able to breathe is Duke.
Wide eyed and blissed out, Duke murmurs, “I’m not complaining. I’m definitely not complaining, but…what was that for?”
Nathan pops off Duke’s dick and swipes the back of his hand against his swollen mouth. He sits back on his heels and says, “I’m going to kill you, if you go after anyone else who’s Troubled.”
Duke swallows thickly. His happy afterglow is wearing off fast. “I know.”
Nodding sharply, Nathan clambers to his feet. Up close he is wrecked, physically raw. Even though he probably doesn’t feel debauched, he looks the part. He leans in close and presses hot lips against Duke’s jaw. “Don’t drink yourself to death.”
It’s not an answer, it’s the precise definition of a non-answer, but Nathan has clammed up tight. Duke nods uncertainly, off balance, his pants still unbuttoned. He watches as Nathan leaves, his measured footsteps echoing hollowly against the Gull’s creaky floor. There is the rumble of an engine and a flash of headlights, and suddenly Duke is alone with his bottles and his shot glasses.
He could drink more, but.
Duke’s pretty certain he does not want to forget this.
---
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Duke/Nathan
Rating: M
Word Count: 3,370
Warnings: Angst, blowjobs, liquor
Summary: “Look, you’ve been really, uh. Supportive. I guess. In your own way. But can you maybe stow the condescension for the night? Disdain doesn’t mix well with anything I serve here.”
Disclaimer: Haven is not mine. Obvs.
Author Notes: I write for other fandoms! Occasionally. Not like I'll ever post this at any of the Haven comms, so no one will ever read it, but hey. It is the thought that counts.
---
He’s got more than one black spot in his memory, most preceded by the sick-sweet scent of alcohol; tequila or whiskey or vodka.
Prost!
There’s only one gaping hole Duke has never been able to explain - watered down sunlight, dried kelp, and his first dead body, but not the last, not by a long shot - and frankly, he grows up minimally interested in the how and the why. The past is an itemized checklist of all the things he’s done wrong, an easy pit to trip into, and regret is for suckers. Duke Crocker is all about the future, about sparkly potential, and it’s all looking pretty bright until Audrey waltzes into town.
She’s got a diamond-edged smile and the uncanny ability to stir up all the sediment Duke is certain that people let settle for a reason.
Dirt starts flying left and right, Haven’s tiny dynasties falling to ash, and Duke wants to stay out of it, honest, he does, but even he’s not immune, old flames and bungled mistakes slithering out of the woodwork. It’s only right that he tries to help fix one or two or eight things, because he had a part in some of the messes Audrey’s trying to clean, and thieves’ honor is still honor, right? It totally counts. At the end of the day, Duke can pat himself on the back for a job well done and revel in the way Audrey grins up at him, like he really is a good man on the inside, like maybe he’ll always do the right thing.
Only Duke knows better. He’s not like Audrey or Nathan, not cut from fairytale cloth where justice prevails and chivalry triumphs and true love’s kiss is the only kind that matters. Haven, Maine, might be storybook pretty, but in novels people like Duke always end up being the bad guy, and he doubts real life will be much different. Finding out he’s like, Buffy the Troubled Slayer is less of a nasty shock and more of the bomb Duke always knew would drop.
Doesn’t mean he’s a fan of being told what to do, even if fate’s the one pulling the strings. He’s been able to ignore plenty of legacies from dear old dad, including but not limited to debt, liver disease, and dickishness.
Well. Maybe not that last one, but the rest, yeah, he’s dodged and feinted like a pro, so why should this be any different? That’s what he’s hinging on for the longest while, through Nathan’s diva fits and the mistrust in half of the town folks’ eyes; his legendary ability to outrun the world.
Turns out, the world’s been training for this marathon, or maybe blood really is the one thing a person can’t leave behind. Whatever the reason, Duke ends up with hands stained red and a really deep, passionate desire to forget everything ever.
Great.
Fabulous.
Awesome.
So he’s getting reacquainted with some old friends, specifically Jose and Johnny, with a side of Ketel One to make it a real party, and that, of course, is when Nathan shows up. He rarely visits the Gull without Audrey by his side, so this isn’t a social call. Probably Nathan Wuornos has finally decided to bite the bullet by forcing Duke to bite a bullet.
Duke doesn’t even have the energy to be upset about it. He takes a shot of Cuervo and raises his empty glass in a toast, because if he’s going to die, he is doing it drunk, goddamnit. “How’s it going, buddy?”
In a startling show of restraint, Nathan does not pull a gun on him, which oh, goody, means death won’t come knocking today. Nor is Wuornos wearing his Serious Detective Face. No doubt that means Nathan is here in an unofficial capacity to lord his moral superiority all over Duke’s nice clean bar.
Joy. The floors will get all sticky with condescension and virtue.
Duke pours another reinforcing shot of tequila, deciding Nathan’s sassy bitch grimace is sure to be more entertaining through a haze of 90 proof. Meanwhile, Nathan drums his fingers against his own thigh, working out some kind of internal debate before he slides onto the nearest barstool.
“Are you alright?”
Duke snorts. “In what sense? Physically, spiritually, financially-“
“Emotionally.”
“Ah, see, no, emotions aren’t something you’ve accused me of having before, so that would not have been my first guess. Are you sure you didn’t mean-“
“I meant what I said.”
“Will you let me finish a sentence? Manners, Nathan. Manners are important.” He waves a hand airily around, because the alternative is trying to find some warmth in Nathan’s skin, and that won’t be happening ever again. They can’t touch like they used to, when they were younger and freer and energy buzzed electric in their bones. The past is still a thunderous thing, resonant in the careful spaces they keep between their bodies, all these memories that punish and sing siren songs in turn.
And even if their history wasn’t half-written in blood, Nathan is numb to hands and knives; to Duke, who is somewhere in between. He is calluses and skin, the sharp bite of nails and his silver tongue.
Or at least that’s what Nathan used to say when they were different people entirely.
The one time they’ve tried to cross the divide and sort out all the rottenness between them, Nathan couldn’t feel it. Not the rough parts, or the gentleness either. He puts on a good show, acts like he still knows what to do with his lips, but Duke has always been able to tell the difference between an oasis and a mirage.
Besides, they were dimwitted to think sex would be a magic fix-all. If anything, it just made them angrier and more resentful.
Worse still, now Duke has no idea what he is, indefinable in terms of his relationship with Nathan, and unwilling to define himself by anything else. Labels are not kind things, and Troubled sounds a lot like Murderer in his head.
Nathan is watching Duke with something perilously close to pity, and Duke’s first instinct is to lash out, to bat that expression away. Once upon a time he marked his days with the myriad ways they fucked and fought, but he’s got a different calendar now. He’ll keep the peace, if he can.
“I am very, very far from alright,” he announces, refilling his glass and willing his fingers not to tremble. He is hollow on the inside, the parts of himself that survived childhood rusting out like an old hull, but that’ll change. Crocker men are iron and steel, metal spines beneath their more fallible, less reliable organs.
It’s the one thing his dad said that stuck with him through every self-destructive binge he’s ever orchestrated, advice that has yet to let Duke down. It’s how he survived Nathan leaving, anyway, and that took him to some pretty dark places.
Killing a man is simultaneously a weightier thing and not as difficult, because Duke was perfectly aware he had violence in him, but he never thought he’d be able to let Nathan go.
He’s still not certain that he has, haunted as he is by the gunmetal rings of Nathan’s irises, the curve of his mouth and, in Duke’s grandest moments of self-deprecation, the way no one has ever loved him as fiercely or as true.
Nathan says, “It gets better.”
Nathan lies.
“See, you say that, but you don’t mean it,” Duke replies. No horrific act ever heals. Scars are meant to remind people where they went wrong.
Nathan’s shoulders slump, but he probably doesn’t even know how to spell defeat. “Fine. It doesn’t get better. It gets…easier.”
“To kill or to not to care?”
“Both.”
“That’s terrifying, you asshole. Why are you trying to freak me out?”
“Fear is good for you. It’ll help keep you honest.”
Duke laughs at that. “Nothing keeps me honest.”
He can’t have always sounded so bitter. Duke remembers lying tangled in Nathan’s sheets, painted pale yellow with sunlight, their ankles twined, their laughter crashing down around them both like gold-dappled waves. These days Nathan is statue-somber, but he used to rip joy from Duke’s throat without even trying.
Duke ruined him, or this town ruined him, or maybe they both had a hand in it. Haven and Crockers destroy all the things they touch.
“Duke…”
“Look, you’ve been really, uh. Supportive. I guess. In your own way. But can you maybe stow the condescension for the night? Disdain doesn’t mix well with anything I serve here.”
Nathan raises his hands slowly, his fingers as long and perfect as the last time Duke saw them wrapped around his cock. “I’m trying to help.”
“You’re failing.” Nathan’s face doesn’t fall, exactly, but frustration, annoyance, and disappointment flicker across his expression quick as heat lightning, and if there’s something like sadness mixed in then Duke chooses not to see it. He continues, “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it. Clearly you are making an effort not to kill me, which is spectacular because I’m fond of living, but I really, really, really want to be alone right now.”
Being alone used to be significant because it meant being with Nathan, but that hasn’t been the case for years. Nathan makes an aggravated sound. “I don’t want to kill you. I just don’t want you kill anyone else, either.”
“I don’t need you to police my life choices. We’ve had this talk.”
“Except obviously you do. You’re Troubled, Duke.” The word doesn’t sound any better from Nathan’s lips than it did in Duke’s head. All the scary connotations are there, echoing in the air, but for clarity’s sake Nathan adds, “You’re going to hurt people.”
Duke rolls his eyes, downs his drink, and bites out, “I never needed spooky magic powers to make anyone hurt.”
What happened between them went down a long time ago, but Nathan still jerks away from the words, as if they cut deep when nothing else could. Duke waits for him to accentuate the gesture by stomping off in a full-on sulk, storm clouds and frown lines, but Nathan stands his ground.
Duke doesn’t know how to interpret it. Either he can’t wound Nathan the way he used to or Nathan cares more than Duke thought. Which to hope for?
Both options make him ache.
Nathan eyes the empty rocks glass in Duke’s hand, drops of Cuervo still glittering honey colored at the bottom. “You can’t drink your problems away.”
Cheerily, Duke retorts, “I can try.”
He watches the clench of Nathan’s fists and thinks about kissing the web of skin between his index finger and thumb. If Nathan closed his eyes, he wouldn’t even know it was happening. This is masochism, at its finest. Duke’s gut squeezes in time with Nathan’s fingers and palms, heart stuttering with loss of something he hasn’t had in forever anyway. The ghost of love is so pesky.
He’s pissed off and less than sober, and pressing the issue seems like a Good Idea. “Hey, so if I do go homicidal on this whole town, am I going to get up close and intimate with your gun? You never let me touch it anymore.”
Two steps is all it takes for Nathan to invade his personal space, to get up in Duke’s face with his eyes sparking fire. He never gets this angry for anyone else, so completely in control of everything he does, every carefully faked reaction to touch and to shock; Chief Wuornos and his icy composure. Duke makes it all come crashing down, every time, eternally the faulty brick in Nathan’s carefully constructed walls.
“Do you have to turn everything into a joke?”
“Only funny things.”
Nathan’s heat ignites the places where their bodies touch, but he doesn’t even appear to notice that their knees are knocking together.
Duke does. He wants Nathan’s hands and he wants Nathan’s mouth, and most of all he wants Nathan to look at him with his too-blue eyes like maybe he is not a monster.
But that would be a small miracle, so why not perpetuate the myth?
He arches against Nathan, making it obvious, his eyes tracking slow down the lines of Wuornos’s throat, his chest, his really tight pants. Missing out on pain apparently means his balls don’t ever need to breathe, but that’s cool, Duke is all about appreciating the view.
Nathan follows Duke’s gaze, but keeps his terrier-hold of the conversation. He insists, “You dying is not funny,” ending on a growl.
So there, subject closed. That’s how Nathan ends every argument, with the same I’m right-you’re wrong mentality he’s had since they were ankle biters. Now Duke knows better than to argue, but when they were kids? Oh, arguing is all he used to do.
Duke spent most of his time running around, causing chaos - making as much noise as possible to make up for the complete lack of it inside his utter wasteland of a home - and Nathan was always there, not always a friend, but not always an enemy either.
He was an easy mark for Duke’s anger a lot of the time.
He was also the only person who held the world together when everyone else had walked away.
The first time they kissed Duke was drunk off his ass, and the next morning he barely recalled anything other than the way Nathan watched him with a combination of exasperation, fondness, and reverence, too much emotion luminescent on his face. What happened from there is history, or maybe it’s not.
Does it count as an epic love story if no one but the two of them knew it was occurring?
Instead of gritting out a snappy retort, Duke says, “Nice to see you still care.”
“I never stopped caring,” Nathan says, mouth close enough to kiss, and he looks happier when he’s investigating mysterious deaths than he does saying that out loud. Flattery never was Nathan’s strong suit.
The confession takes something out of him; he drops to his knees.
Or hey, actually, okay, those are Nathan’s fingers on Duke’s belt buckle, clumsily opening the catch, and it’s not surrender in his eyes. Okay then.
“Yeah, no, Nate, this is unexpectedly…hot, but what the fuck are you doing?” Duke asks, doing his damndest not to stammer, but hell if the liquor doesn’t make his vowels slow and round off his consonants.
Nathan says, “Figure it out,” and that’s unnecessarily snarky, honestly, but its par for the course. Duke makes an indignant noise when Nathan presses his mouth against the shape of his cock through denim, because wait, he’s not stupid and this has Bad Idea written all over it.
Naturally that bit of wisdom flies right out of his head when Nathan arches his eyebrows and yanks down Duke’s zipper. Duke is slower on the uptake than he was ten years ago, witch-blood sluggish and dull with pre-gaming his pity-party, but he still can’t help but react to that, to the reality of Nathan about to blow him and his vivid recollection of this happening a billion times before.
Nathan works Duke free of his pants and underwear, hands hot for all he can’t feel, and shit, Duke probably should have worn a pair of clean boxers.
That thought’s chased away too as Nathan presses his lips against the wiry hair at the base of Duke’s cock. He lingers, breathing Duke in before mouthing his way up the shaft of his dick, testing the give of skin and the heat he can probably taste. Probably. Duke hears a noise that must be him and realizes he might be hyperventilating.
That does not keep him from watching as Nathan wraps his lips around the head of Duke’s dick, sparing a whole three seconds to tease before swallowing him whole. His hands press bruises into Duke’s thighs, alternately squeezing and tracing strange geometric shapes on the back of Duke’s knees while Duke stares down at him in utter shock.
He’s got no idea what he sees on Nathan’s face now; shadows of joy, shadows of anger, who even cares? Duke wends his fingers through thick hair and resolves not to get too poetic about anything as he bobs into the heat of Nathan’s mouth.
Been there, done that, left a terribly expressive, terribly humiliating drunk voicemail in the hopes that Nathan would take him back.
Nathan did not, his twinkly eyes be damned, and surprise blowjobs don’t mean this time will be any different. Down that road lies heartbreak and confessing everything to Audrey over chick flicks and a tub of chocolate ice cream.
The idea of it is enough to put the fear of god in any emotionally stunted asshole, Duke included.
Of course, it would be a lot easier to remember the ramifications of not-hating Nathan if Nathan wasn’t sucking his dick.
It’d be different if Nathan was doing it mechanically, muscle-memory guiding the way. Instead he’s getting pretty enthusiastic, shepherded in part by recollection, the grunts and groans tumbling from Duke’s lips lighting the rest of the way. He curls his tongue around the underside of Duke’s cock, tight suction and impossibly wet heat.
This is so not fair.
“Nathan,” Duke says, digging his fingers into Nathan’s scalp, voice cracking uncomfortably.
Nathan makes a noise that could be a laugh, if this were in any way funny, and he takes Duke to the back of his throat, lets off only to flick wet against the slit. Everything around Duke’s dick pulses, hothothot and live-wire thrilling. The hardwood floor creaks beneath them, the wind battering up a storm outside.
Duke is way too fucking drunk for this, horny enough that he wants to get it over with, nostalgic enough that he’s determined not to end everything too quick. Like he’s got a choice. Nathan is all mouth and tongue and the barest purposeful scrape of teeth.
The hint of pain spins Duke out, reckless abandon curling hot and low. He takes Nathan’s face between his hands, caressing his hollowed cheeks in a way Nathan can see peripherally. Duke holds him still and snaps his hips forward. He may not be able to hurt Nathan, but he can give him a show, and having no gag reflex doesn’t mean Wuornos’s voice will be any less scratchy once Duke is done with him.
Nathan’s mouth is stretched red and obscene, but he stares unblinkingly back at Duke as he moves, his tongue licking slow stretches across Duke’s flesh each time Duke dips deliberately between his lips.
It ends like it’s supposed to, Duke’s balls drawing up tight and then it’s over, over, over. Swallowing cum is as easy as knocking back a tequila shot, and like most of Haven, Nathan has been doing those since before he knew how to drive. It slides hot and salty all the way down his throat, and afterwards for hours, if there is any justice in this world, all he will be able to breathe is Duke.
Wide eyed and blissed out, Duke murmurs, “I’m not complaining. I’m definitely not complaining, but…what was that for?”
Nathan pops off Duke’s dick and swipes the back of his hand against his swollen mouth. He sits back on his heels and says, “I’m going to kill you, if you go after anyone else who’s Troubled.”
Duke swallows thickly. His happy afterglow is wearing off fast. “I know.”
Nodding sharply, Nathan clambers to his feet. Up close he is wrecked, physically raw. Even though he probably doesn’t feel debauched, he looks the part. He leans in close and presses hot lips against Duke’s jaw. “Don’t drink yourself to death.”
It’s not an answer, it’s the precise definition of a non-answer, but Nathan has clammed up tight. Duke nods uncertainly, off balance, his pants still unbuttoned. He watches as Nathan leaves, his measured footsteps echoing hollowly against the Gull’s creaky floor. There is the rumble of an engine and a flash of headlights, and suddenly Duke is alone with his bottles and his shot glasses.
He could drink more, but.
Duke’s pretty certain he does not want to forget this.
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